According to the press release from Apple, developers will no longer be forced to use their API and tools. Vendors like Adobe and the UNREAL engine, will now be accepted in the terms of Apples review process. Additionally, the review process that seemed to be made up as they go, will finally be released to all developers. This is great news all around, and will hopefully bring around a consistent flow of quality apps.

Press Release

The App Store℠ has revolutionized the way mobile applications are developed and distributed. With over 250,000 apps and 6.5 billion downloads, the App Store has become the world’s largest mobile application platform and App Store developers have earned over one billion dollars from the sales of their apps.

We are continually trying to make the App Store even better. We have listened to our developers and taken much of their feedback to heart. Based on their input, today we are making some important changes to our iOS Developer Program license in sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.3.9 to relax some restrictions we put in place earlier this year.

In particular, we are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps, as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. This should give developers the flexibility they want, while preserving the security we need.

In addition, for the first time we are publishing the App Store Review Guidelines to help developers understand how we review submitted apps. We hope it will make us more transparent and help our developers create even more successful apps for the App Store.

The App Store is perhaps the most important milestone in the history of mobile software. Working together with our developers, we will continue to surprise and delight our users with innovative mobile apps.

Today I was incredibly lucky to be invited to cover the Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington DC. Pennies for thoughts?

I have not quite yet discussed this yet, but I have recently had a change in jobs. I will now be the community manager for an awesome start up called govWin (owned by Deltek). On the teams behalf, I was covering important points about the government being open, and taking advantage of social media sites.

In the spirit of being open, I have run an archive of some rather interesting social media statistics, based off of participants using the official Gov 2.0 Summit hashtag (#g2s). Utilizing The Archivist, not only can you download a full excel sheete with every tweet that mentions #g2s in the last 48 hours, it shows other useful information. Pie charts too. After a simple analysis of these tweets, it also shows what links were mentioned the most, and this usually denotes a high interest. According to the compiled information, TweetDeck was the weapon of choice for the in session coverage.

Both http://challenge.gov and http://reboot.fcc.gov/developer were amongst the most popular links being shared during the summit. Additionally, Tim O’Reilly has posted numerous YouTube videos of the event. Google was interviewing guests at the after party as well, which will probably show in the next day or so. Lastly, you can see a short clip from O’Reilly at the Google reception after Gov 2.0.

[The Archivist][govWin Twitter][US federal IT spending: a wasteland of misbegotten contracts]

Justin Bieber

An anonymous Twitter employee has stated that three percent of all tweets relate to one celebrity. Any regular Twitter user should know who.

Why yes, of course it’s Justin Bieber. According to Dustin Curtis, San Fran designer, a friend of his that works at Twitter stated that not only does Bieber account for three percent of all Tweets in a day. Additionally, there are dedicated servers at Twitter, just to take the brunt force damage created by little Bieb lovers.

A quick sampling of Tweets may just give you a better idea of the volume being produced from Bieber fans.

Tron Legacy

Game Rant has some brilliant coverage of PAX, including Portal 2 and Tron. A healthy round up of what you should know.

• Tron Evolution game play goes viral. Impressions look bleak.
• Portal 2 Co-op.
• Duke Nuke Forever, the game that was said to never hit the market was unveiled, again.
• Black Ops: Nazi Zombies may be replaced by Communist Zombies.

The Konami code, sometimes referred to as the Contra Code can be used on many of Google’s applications. Google has now implemented the code on Google docs, which flips the sites contents. The effects of the code  can be reversed by putting it in again, or reloading your page. Many websites like Facebook or even the Oatmeal have utilized this nerdy feature.

To utilize the Konami Code, press on your keyboard: Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Enter.

*Sorry for the shaky video, my iPhone 4 was the only thing handy at the moment.

EA Games is offering some of their biggest hits, for a fraction of the cost. Currently Mass Effect 2 is only $24, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is $18, and Dragon Age Origin Digital Deluxe is $18. For those of you who also must have the hard copy, most of these games are also on sale, but a great deal more expensive.

[EA Games]

As a bit of a going away joke, our editor placed this pac-man on his old offices computer background, and ensured that there was no way to turn it off. Aside from that, no other evil pranks were pulled, but supposedly his office assistant knitted him a pretty sweet pacman, too.

Thank you all for those who participated. We will be providing another give away when we post our new weekly section, covering Game Rant.

As of 12 pm EST, a majority of Digg’s front page is being consumed by links from their rival, Reddit. Of the Reddit links listed on Digg, they are humorously at least a day old posting from Reddit, which is a popular joke on the site (Reddit users feel that Digg consists of all Reddit posts, but one day later.

One of the issues Digg users currently have, is the ease at which organizations and companies can get their content to the front page.  In turn, Digg users have promoted Reddit’s links to the front page, and in the comment section revolted against the site. Supposedly Digg has begun censoring this revolt by removing some of Reddit’s links from the front page.

Kevin Rose, creator of Digg is known to be against censorship, as noted when he refused to take down the commercial DVD encryption code that would be continuously posted on the site. There has yet to be an official response from Rose on the matter, but Twitter users are constantly trying to reach out to him on the matter, mostly laughing at him.

A random poll of 500 tweets also resulted in similar reactions. Showing that most people are either angry with Digg’s new user interface, or are aware that Reddit has taken over their front page.

Coincidentally, Reddit is also featuring their daily logo change, mocking the Digg symbol.

[Reddit discussing Digg's issue][Digg user revolting on Digg]

I decided to nerd out yesterday and rummage through an extensive period of time playing the game. Some how in the midst of this, I realized I still have a guest pass. I also have a World of Warcraft 10 day trial, but seriously who plays that garbage.

For this “contest” lets say we go against the grain shall we? I don’t need any of you following our editor @thejournalizer, we don’t need you adding us on Facebook and we sure don’t require you to comment on this post.

Contest Requirement: Draw your best Pac-man. It may have something to do with this. Draw it on the computer, a piece of paper, or even with an airplane. As long as we get it by Monday night, you are entered to win!

You can post the image in our comments, e-mail it to owner@play-this.org or tweet it to @thejournalizer. Make sure you give us at least an e-mail address, so we can contact you with the prize. The winner will be announced Tuesday, along with some interesting surprises. If you don’t happen to like StarCraft, there is a good chance there is someone you know who would love to dabble in it.

Netflix has officially landed on the iPhone, providing thousands of streaming movies. Say goodbye to your free time.

Like all Instant View enabled devices, you can start a movie from your PC, and continue watching it from your phone on your way to work. There is no fee for the app, or the ability to stream movies to your phone, but you do need a current subscription to Netflix.

It rocks

The app over all is quite polished, and works as advertised. You can stream any of the movies or TV shows over 3G with great quality. Obviously streaming video over the data network takes a while to buffer though*. For those of you grandfathered in with unlimited data plans, there is really no reason to even think about Hulu Plus, when you can get Netflix for free.

*Protip – After the video loads, hit pause and let it buffer for 10 minutes or so over 3G.

Manage your instant queue, watch full seasons of TV shows and of course be suggested to view other movies that are similar to what you’ve been watching. If you exit out of the app, a small banner at the top of the video selections will prompt you to resume where you left off.

Netflix has truly done a great job, and the app currently only lacks one rather important feature. The ability to manage your physical queue (movies that get sent to you).

[iTunes Netflix]